To date, many gait generation strategies have been designed for robots with leg configurations that model those of natural creatures. However, their leg configurations are limited to the $2\times N$ type, such as hexapod or myriapod; hence, simultaneously, the potential ability of legged robots is implicitly limited. We consider single-legged modular robots that can be arranged to form a cluster with arbitrary 2-D leg configurations. By choosing configurations appropriately, these robots have the potential to perform several types of tasks, as is the case for reconfigurable modular robots. However, to use appropriate configurations for a given task, a unified gait generation system for various configurations of a cluster is required. In this article, we propose an autonomous distributed control system for each single-legged modular robot to collectively achieve static walking of the cluster with various leg configurations on planar ground. Moreover, our system is an autonomous distributed system with scalability and fault tolerance, in which each module determines the moving pattern of its foot through local communication without global information, such as the entire leg configuration of the cluster. We verified that several types of clusters achieved static walking using our system not only in dynamic simulations, but also in real robot experiments.

中文翻译：

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用于以各种配置连接的单腿模块化机器人步态生成的自主分布式系统

迄今为止，已经为具有模仿自然生物腿部结构的机器人设计了许多步态生成策略。但是，它们的腿配置仅限于$2\times N$ 类型，例如六足或多足；因此，同时，腿式机器人的潜在能力也受到了限制。我们考虑单腿模块化机器人，它们可以排列成具有任意二维腿配置的集群。通过适当地选择配置，这些机器人有可能执行多种类型的任务，就像可重新配置的模块化机器人一样。然而，要为给定的任务使用适当的配置，需要一个用于集群各种配置的统一步态生成系统。在本文中，我们为每个单腿模块化机器人提出了一个自主分布式控制系统，以共同实现具有各种腿配置的集群在平面地面上的静态行走。此外，我们的系统是一个具有可扩展性和容错性的自治分布式系统，其中每个模块通过本地通信来确定其脚的运动模式，而无需全局信息，例如集群的整个腿配置。我们不仅在动态模拟中，而且在真实的机器人实验中验证了几种类型的集群使用我们的系统实现了静态行走。其中每个模块通过本地通信来确定其脚的运动模式，而无需全局信息，例如集群的整个腿部配置。我们不仅在动态模拟中，而且在真实的机器人实验中验证了几种类型的集群使用我们的系统实现了静态行走。其中每个模块通过本地通信来确定其脚的运动模式，而无需全局信息，例如集群的整个腿部配置。我们不仅在动态模拟中，而且在真实的机器人实验中验证了几种类型的集群使用我们的系统实现了静态行走。